James Dobson: If McCain’s the nominee, I’m sitting out; Audio: I’ll vote for Romney in the general, says Dobson

posted at 12:55 pm on February 5, 2008 by Allahpundit

One last threat before the die is cast. He’s been making the perfect the enemy of the good (or average) since the campaign began, first with Giuliani, then with Fred(!), and now at last with a guy with respect to whom his sentiment might resonate a bit with the base. Geraghty tries to fact-check him but this long march towards rejectionism has always been aimed at showing the party how much it’ll suffer without him and his supporters. If it wasn’t, he’d have thrown in with Huck or Romney long ago. Will the flock follow him into the wilderness? No one knows yet but I’m betting no. The country’s newest “Christian leader” will help keep them in the fold for Maverick.

Pity poor Laura, who had no choice but to accept an exclusive this newsworthy (I’d have done so too) but who’s reduced momentarily to a mouthpiece for Dobson’s latest performance of “private citizen” kabuki. No matter. She’s already done her good deed for the day.

Update: He won’t endorse in a primary, but he’ll happily anti-endorse candidates various and sundry. Thanks to Derek F. at Salem for the clip; it’s been edited for brevity.

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I can’t stand James Dobson. Please, stay home, and then never come back outside. Anywho, let’s get serious…if it comes down to Hillary and McCain, I’m going with McCain and that’s it. The lesser of two evils. If you don’t support McCain, think of the alternative. At least health care will be safe.

Ugh. I hate being in the same ballpark as Dobson on this one, but at least I can take solace in the fact that Dobson was also going to sit out if Fred, Mitt, or Rudy was the nominee, but would have happily voted for Huckabee despite Huck’s Carter-esque views on foreign policy and most domestic issues as well.

Oh, for Pete’s sake. Rash Limbaugh and MM have cranked up the McCain hate to radioactive levels, and HA is doing the same.

Agreed, and it doesn’t make sense to me. We need(ed) to rally around someone in a positive way, not just attack someone relentlessly. We need to say and define what we stand for. Leave the hating to the Liberals; that’s what they’re good at.

And don’t bother shrilling about the 2001 Bush cuts – McCain campaigned on reducing the deficit first , and if we’d listened to him then, we wouldn’t be in such a hole now.

Pax americana on February 5, 2008 at 1:50 PM

Spending cuts?
Exactly where does St.John propose cutting spending, or does the Straight Talk Express skip that stop?
McCain won’t cut spending to balance the budget.
He’ll raise taxes in order to cover the spending.
The GOP will move boldly into the Golden Era before Reagan when they were the tax collectors for the welfare state.

Agreed, and it doesn’t make sense to me. We need(ed) to rally around someone in a positive way, not just attack someone relentlessly. We need to say and define what we stand for. Leave the hating to the Liberals; that’s what they’re good at.

mattyj86 on February 5, 2008 at 2:01 PM

Ok, so I’m supposed to show party loyalty to the candidate that hasn’t been loyal to the party. Does that make sense to anyone?

if it comes down to Hillary and McCain, I’m going with McCain and that’s it. The lesser of two evils. If you don’t support McCain, think of the alternative. At least health care will be safe.

mattyj86 on February 5, 2008 at 1:55 PM

Are you sure about that? Let’s assume they pursue similar agendas. Who is more likely to do the most long term damage, McCain, who will have virtually no opposition or Hillary who will have tremendous opposition from the Right on almost anything she does?

Menu:
Thompson burger–Awesome burger (out of stock due to bad planning).
Romney burger—-Burger with limburger cheese.
Huckabee burger–Hotdog in a hamburger bun
McCain burger—-Hotdog shaped like a burger
Clinton burger—Hotdog with arsenic
Obama burger—–Fluffinutter sandwhich with hemlock and a side of hope.

What will you get? Consider what you want, what you can settle for and what will kill you.

My big beef with McCain is opposing tax cuts. The Reagan and Bush II strategy of starving the beast is the only strategy that has really accomplished anything. The alternatives, a balanced budget amendment and wishing upon a star for pork cuts, are abysmal failures. People will vote for the incumbent that brings home the bacon, even if it is Ron Paul.

Menu:
Thompson burger–Awesome burger (out of stock due to bad planning).
Romney burger—-Burger with limburger cheese.
Huckabee burger–Hotdog in a hamburger bun
McCain burger—-Hotdog shaped like a burger with side of bad potato salad
Clinton burger—Hotdog with arsenic
Obama burger—–Fluffinutter sandwhich with hemlock and a side of hope.

What will you get? Consider what you want, what you can settle for and what will leave you with a belly ache and what will kill you.

It’s a real mind-blower how someone who devotes his life to the care & nurturing of families can be so hated. Yes, Dobson gives political opinions–very rarely–& they are always reasonable, even if I disagree with them. I guess anyone in the public eye who stands for something will be hated.

My point is, Dobson is not serving two masters. He believes he is serving the Lord in saying what he said.

jgapinoy on February 5, 2008 at 1:43 PM

It is very plain, Christ did not want you to serve the people and serve Him. Hardly anything could be more plain biblicaly. You can’t do government work, otherwise he would have wanted his followers to become politicians. A politician is sworn to serve the people, a Christian leader is sworn to follow God, and the two have more conflicts then similarities.
I am not saying you can’t bring God with you, you just can’t fully serve Him, if you are out trying to get votes, and stay in power. Huck was a good example, Christ says follow the laws of the land, in our land it is protect the borders, he wanted to open the borders to “help” the downtrodden…the two don’t mix.
Every time a religious “leader” comes into power, you have a struggle between what God wants him to do, what he wants to do, and what the people want to have done.
You would have to be a living prophet to be such a man.

I see you guys are still posting McCain’s rating from one year early in his career and representing it as his career mean. You just got spanked for doing that yesterday. Why don’t you post his yearly ratings for the 5 most recent years? Or, at least have the decency to wait a couple of days before you lie again.

William Wilberforce became a Christian while in the British Parliament. He thought he should resign to serve the Lord, but John Newton counseled him to stay put. Wilberforce went on to fight slavery for the rest of his career, eventually succeeding in having it outlawed.
It is extremely ignorant to think you can’t serve God in politics.

Yes, J-Mac has slid down to the 50s & 60s the last few years. I guess that’s the same as Hillary’s 9.

jgapinoy on February 5, 2008 at 2:51 PM

But, that isn’t the way you represented that plus 80 figure, is it? You left out the qualifiers in order to deceive. Is this the kind of Straight Talk we can expect from the McCain presidency? Do you represent his method of communciation? Or, are you going to feed us more of that “Politics ain’t beanbag” tripe?

Well, gosh, you can’t beat that logic. If someone disagrees you call them ignorant.
You sat on the debating team bench through school, didn’t you?

Do you want me to pull out all of the religious fanatics who sought power in the name of God? You come out with Wilberforce, let me see if I can think of one…let me see…eye a tolla, as soon as I think of one, I wonder if there are any in the middle east?… if only Falwell was alive he would know some.(btw, 2002 McCain and Falwell kissed and made up, Falwell thought very highly of McCain)

Dobson is knocking McCain for preserving the filibuster? If the Dems win the White House, the 43 or so remaining Republican Senators will really need the filibuster.

dedalus on February 5, 2008 at 2:01 PM

The issue was *not* a filibuster in general. It was the use of the filibuster to obstruct the voting on judicial appointments. This kind of filibuster had almost *never* been done before. Republicans rightly wanted to force an up or down vote on judicial appointments. Had they been able to do so, the filibuster for this purpose only (which only democrats have dared to use) would be tossed.

But, that isn’t the way you represented that plus 80 figure, is it? You left out the qualifiers in order to deceive. Is this the kind of Straight Talk we can expect from the McCain presidency? Do you represent his method of communciation? Or, are you going to feed us more of that “Politics ain’t beanbag” tripe?

a capella on February 5, 2008 at 3:09 PM

And Mitt has on his webpage 21 stories of McCain “going to the Dems”, 17 of these “stories” and “quotes” are from one man and the same article. 2 are from Kerry (a real “sraight talker” and the other two are just garbage.

Is this the type of kind of Straight Talk we can expect from the Romney presidency?

So, you agree with what jgapinoy tried to do because Romney has quotes on his site from a single source? You don’t like Romney’s web page stories, so that makes it O.K. for HA posters to misrepresent data? Man, that’s some heavy moral equivilance stuff you got going on. For some reason I have had the impression you were a man of the cloth. Tell me it ain’t so.

Dobson is an a_hole, a jerk and an idiot. That’s just plain speaking folks

georgealbert on February 5, 2008 at 2:43 PM

You do not have to like Dobson, but an idiot he is not. He has an earned Ph.D. in child development from University of Southern California. I have met him on a number of occasions, and have found him to be an intelligent man deeply concerned about families and the culture in which they live. He has as much right to state his political views as anyone with a microphone, and you have every right to ignore them. The ad hominems, however, do not reflect well on you.

Dobson was going on the media circuit last year, explaining that he could not support Rudy Giuliani or Fred Thompson because of their record.
Well, if the history of a candidate is what we look at, then why is Dobson overlooking Huckabee’s liberal record as Governor of Arkansas!?!
There is no need to go into Huckabee’s record here, as it has been highlighted on blogs and conservative radio, ad nauseam.

My comment today is:

This seriously, really gets under my skin. He’s apparently afraid to un-endorse Huckabee because of an evangelical backlash.

That’s not a principled stand! That’s far worse than a chicken out! Despicable, that’s what it is. Utterly despicable!!

I was responding to his McCain’s “straight talk” with Mitt’s “straight talk”. Don’t read anything more into it, it will make you dizzy. I wasn’t saying it was ok, could you point that out to me? Neither one is a “straight talker”.
All politicians pontificate, by definition they are not “straight talkers”. Mitt is no different then any other. Want more examples, like gun control? Want more. They all do it.

Man, that’s some heavy moral equivilance stuff that I never said, stuff you got going on.

Fair enough, and point well taken. To be honest, I never understood the Huckabee endorsement in the first place. I understand saying you will never vote for anyone who is not pro-life, as Dobson has, if those are your convictions, but surely we can find someone who is pro-life *and* refuses to sell our country down the liberal river on other issues. I was a Thompson supporter for this reason–federalism all the way.

James Dobson: If McCain’s the nominee, I’m sitting out; Audio: I’ll vote for Romney in the general, says Dobson

The first thing I’ve agreed with him on in a long time. I blame Dobson for a lot of this mess though. His early proclamations of who were and were not Christian enough propelled Huckabee past Thompson in the early contests (among evangelicals who had previously polled in Thompson’s favor) and was likely a contributing factor to his early demise.

I was responding to his McCain’s “straight talk” with Mitt’s “straight talk”. Don’t read anything more into it, it will make you dizzy. I wasn’t saying it was ok, could you point that out to me?

I’m trying not to put words in your mouth so let’s do it this way. Do you approve of a HA poster using data in a way that deceives the reader? Doesn’t matter who else does it on whatever site. If a supporter of one of the candidates essentially lies by ommission here on HA, is it justified?

Meh, I’m ready to get this election over with so we can start rebuilding. The clapboard is up, the doors are locked and the family is in the station wagon on its way out of the path of the coming storm.

If it’s McShamnesty I’m sitting this one out. I’d rather have a Dem in the Whitehouse who the republican Senate and Congress can fight tooth and nail on every issue than a RINO who Republicans are likely to go along with on everything from a new Shamnesty deal to drilling in Anwar…oh wait that’s right, he won’t drill in Anwar…GLOBAL WARMING!!! The sky is indeed falling.

Dobson never said anyone wasn’t Christian enough (as Bryan has pointed out in HA). He said evangelicals might not consider Fred “Christian enough”.

jgapinoy on February 5, 2008 at 8:31 PM

That’s BS! The implication was CLEAR. Just like when the media blindsides a politician with: “some people are saying…blah, blah, blah” when it’s the reporter who’s making the accusation.
It was Dobson’s original thought, and HE put it out there, and Huckabee surged… and we have the results.